Read this book! In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan

I know I'm a little late with this one because it was published in 2008. But I feel like my eyes have been opened to a whole new world since changing my diet, including books and other resources that I had never heard about. I'm finding out about them from other people and want to pay it forward by sharing what I find with you.

To sum it up: 'Michael Pollan describes what he calls the American Paradox:  the more we worry about nutrition, the less healthy we seem to become.'

He goes about this by first describing how 'nutritionism', or thinking of food in terms of nutritional and chemical constituents instead of as a whole, led to the emergence of a new market for manufacturers of processed foods. After saturated fat and cholesterol were singled out in the Dietary Goals for the United States, processed foods low in these constituents began dominating the market. But instead of making us healthier, we became fatter.

He goes on to argue how nutritionism is bad science because its impossible to create a well-designed experiment to tease out the effect of one nutrient. In fact, now we're starting to learn that saturated fat and cholesterol weren't the culprits after all; it could be the processed foods high in added sugar that were created to protect us in the first place.

He finishes with his 'Eater's manifesto': eat food, not too much, mostly plants. I especially like the section called 'Eat food', in which he gives really clear guidelines for how to distinguish between real and processed foods. But I think the titles of his other two sections, 'not too much' and 'mostly plants', are a little misleading. He singles out plants because there's never been evidence that eating vegetables is bad for you, although I would also argue that there's no good evidence that eating meat is bad for you. And the reason why he says 'not too much' is because you just won't be that hungry if you are eating well. But it might be a little off-putting to someone who, upon first reading, thinks it means to restrict calories.

This is a really easy read that I highly recommend, especially for its eater's manifesto. I still think of his guidelines every time I shop at the supermarket and evaluate what I have stocked in my fridge. Hopefully you will too!